editorNPR Digital Services RSS Generator 0.94Dan Charles is NPR's food and agriculture correspondent. Primarily responsible for covering farming and the food industry, Charles focuses on the stories of culture, business, and the science behind what arrives on your dinner plate. This is his second time working for NPR; from 1993 to 1999, Charles was a technology correspondent at NPR. He returned in 2011. During his time away from NPR, Charles was an independent writer and radio producer and occasionally filled in at NPR on the Science and National desks, and at Weekend Edition. Over the course of his career Charles has reported on software engineers in India, fertilizer use in China, dengue fever in Peru, alternative medicine in Germany, and efforts to turn around a troubled school in Washington, DC. In 2009-2010, he taught journalism in Ukraine through the Fulbright program. He has been guest researcher at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg, Germany, and a Knight Science JournalismNPR Digital Services RSS Generator 0.94Dan CharlesSun, 24 Sep 2017 05:44:41 +0000Dan Charleshttp://ktep.org
Dan CharlesArkansas is on the verge of banning the use, during the growing season, of a Monsanto-backed weedkiller that has been blamed for damaging millions of acres of crops in neighboring farms this year. The weedkiller is called dicamba. It can be sprayed on soybeans and cotton that have been genetically modified to tolerate it. But not all farmers plant those new seeds. And across the Midwest, farmers that don't use the herbicide are blaming their dicamba-spraying neighbors for widespread damage to their crops — and increasingly, to wild vegetation. The issue has driven a wedge through farming communities in the Midwest, straining friendships and turning neighbors into adversaries. Monsanto turned to dicamba because many weeds have evolved resistance to the company's earlier weed-killing weapon of choice, glyphosate, also known as Roundup. Increasingly, Roundup no longer gets rid of farmers' most troublesome weeds. Dicamba is an old herbicide, but it's now being used much more widely, inArkansas Defies Monsanto, Moves To Ban Rogue Weedkillerhttp://ktep.org/post/arkansas-poised-ban-most-use-monsanto-herbicide
115848 as http://ktep.orgFri, 22 Sep 2017 10:10:00 +0000Arkansas Defies Monsanto, Moves To Ban Rogue WeedkillerDan CharlesThe organic eggs in your grocery store are supposed to come from chickens that have year-round access to the outdoors. That's according to long-standing organic regulations . But a huge battle has erupted over what "access to the outdoors" actually means. And it's now led to a lawsuit: The Organic Trade Association , which represents most organic food companies, is suing the government, demanding that it implement new rules that require organic egg producers to give their chickens more room to roam. On one side of this battle, there are a few large-scale organic egg producers, such as Herbruck's Poultry Ranch in Saranac, Mich. They believe that "access to the outdoors" means that the chickens get to live in houses with screened-in porches. "It's kind of like your screened porch on your house," says Greg Herbruck, president of the business. "When you go out there, you're outside. You're protected from the rain. In this case, we protect [the chickens] from disease and from predators."Organic Industry Sues USDA To Push For Animal Welfare Ruleshttp://ktep.org/post/organic-industry-sues-push-animal-welfare-rules
115271 as http://ktep.orgWed, 13 Sep 2017 09:02:00 +0000Organic Industry Sues USDA To Push For Animal Welfare RulesDan CharlesWhen the worst of Irma's fury had passed, Gene McAvoy hit the road to inspect citrus groves and vegetable fields. McAvoy is a specialist on vegetable farming at the University of Florida's extension office in the town of LaBelle, in the middle of one of the country's biggest concentrations of vegetable and citrus farms. It took a direct hit from the storm. "The eyewall came right over our main production area," McAvoy says. The groves of orange and grapefruit were approaching harvest. But after Irma blew through, it left "50 or 60 percent of the fruit lying in water [or] on the ground," says McAvoy. Many trees were standing in water, a mortal danger if their roots stay submerged for longer than three or four days. About a quarter of the country's sugar production comes from fields of sugar cane near Lake Okeechobee, east of LaBelle. Harvest season for the sugar cane crop is only a few weeks away, but Irma knocked much of the cane down, making it more difficult to harvest. "We won'tFlorida's Farmers Look At Irma's Damage: 'Probably The Worst We've Seen' http://ktep.org/post/floridas-farmers-look-irmas-damage-probably-worst-weve-seen
115245 as http://ktep.orgTue, 12 Sep 2017 21:01:00 +0000Florida's Farmers Look At Irma's Damage: 'Probably The Worst We've Seen' Dan CharlesIf you are the kind of person who picks up a box of food in the store and studies the label to see how much sugar or salt is in it, you can thank a man named Michael Jacobson . Those labels with nutritional facts are a part of Jacobson's legacy, one of his many victories in a four-decade-long battle against "junk food." He has also had a hand in halting the marketing of many sugar-filled foods to children, reducing salt levels in packaged foods, and banning transfats. Next week, he's stepping down, after 46 years, as president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington, D.C. Jacobson is a paradoxical character. When he's quoted in a news story, he typically sounds ferocious. But in person, he's soft-spoken and chooses his words carefully. He'll break into a friendly, wide-eyed smile while insulting the nutritional quality of your favorite breakfast cereal. He is a food activist who doesn't really love food. When he was growing up, he didn't really care or noticeA Pioneer Of Food Activism Steps Down, Looks Backhttp://ktep.org/post/pioneer-food-activism-steps-down-looks-back
114930 as http://ktep.orgThu, 07 Sep 2017 19:29:00 +0000A Pioneer Of Food Activism Steps Down, Looks BackDan CharlesEarlier this week, as torrents of rain fell on Houston, Craig Boyan, CEO of the H-E-B supermarket chain, went on a video-taped tour of his company's emergency operations center in San Antonio, Texas. The company later made the video available online. It was a revealing look inside a logistical nightmare. Boyan walked through two crowded, windowless rooms, stopping to speak with the people responsible for reopening stores, locating employees (or, as the company calls them, "partners") to staff those stores, organizing deliveries of water and ice, and figuring out how to line up fresh supplies of milk, eggs and bread despite the city's waterlogged streets. One example: H-E-B makes most of its own bread, and its two bread-making plants are located in Corpus Christi and Houston. When the storm hit, "we had to take Corpus down, run the whole company out of Houston," Boyan explained in the video. When the storm moved on toward Houston, "we had to switch back to Corpus, now we're on generatorFor Grocery Stores In Texas, It's A Race To Restock Their Shelveshttp://ktep.org/post/grocery-stores-texas-its-race-restock-their-shelves
114531 as http://ktep.orgThu, 31 Aug 2017 21:49:00 +0000For Grocery Stores In Texas, It's A Race To Restock Their ShelvesDan CharlesBrent Deppe is taking me on a tour of the farm supply business, called Key Cooperative , that he helps to manage in Grinnell, Iowa. We step though the back door of one warehouse, and our view of the sky is blocked by a gigantic round storage tank, painted white. "This is the liquid nitrogen tank," Deppe explains. "It's a million-and-a-half gallon tank." Nitrogen is the essential ingredient for growing corn and most other crops. Farmers around here spread it on their fields by the truckload. "How much nitrogen goes out of here in a year?" I ask. Deppe pauses, reluctant to share trade secrets. "Not enough," he eventually says with a smile. "Because I'm in sales." For the environment, though, the answer is: Way too much. The problems with nitrogen fertilizer start at its creation, which involves burning lots of fossil fuels. Then, when farmers spread it on their fields, it tends not to stay where it belongs. Rainfall washes some of it into streams and lakes, and bacteria in the soil feedDoes 'Sustainability' Help The Environment Or Just Agriculture's Public Image?http://ktep.org/post/does-sustainability-help-environment-or-just-agricultures-public-image
113919 as http://ktep.orgTue, 22 Aug 2017 19:41:00 +0000Does 'Sustainability' Help The Environment Or Just Agriculture's Public Image?Dan CharlesThe Environmental Defense Fund opened an office near Walmart's headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., 10 years ago. It was part of a carefully plotted strategy to persuade the giant retailer that going green could be good for business. If it worked, it certainly could be good for the planet — Walmart's revenues are bigger than the entire economy of most countries. "We really saw that working with companies could be transformative at a scale that was pretty unmatched," says Suzy Friedman, a senior director at EDF. If you're looking for evidence that the strategy is working, there's this: Last year, Walmart unveiled Project Gigaton , a plan to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by a billion tons of carbon between now and 2030. That's almost as much carbon as what's released from the country's entire fleet of passenger cars and trucks in a year. The cuts will come from the company's suppliers: the vast galaxy of companies that make the products it sells. Even before unveiling that pledge,Can Anyone, Even Walmart, Stem The Heat-Trapping Flood Of Nitrogen On Farms?http://ktep.org/post/can-anyone-even-walmart-stem-heat-trapping-flood-nitrogen-farms
113868 as http://ktep.orgMon, 21 Aug 2017 20:51:00 +0000Can Anyone, Even Walmart, Stem The Heat-Trapping Flood Of Nitrogen On Farms?Dan CharlesWild bees, such as bumblebees, don't get as much love as honeybees, but they should. They play just as crucial a role in pollinating many fruits, vegetables and wildflowers, and compared to managed colonies of honeybees, they're in much greater jeopardy . A group of scientists in the United Kingdom decided to look at how bumblebee queens are affected by some widely used and highly controversial pesticides known as neonicotinoids. What they found isn't pretty. Neonics, as they're often called, are applied as a coating on the seeds of some of the most widely grown crops in the country, including corn, soybeans and canola. These pesticides are "systemic" — they move throughout the growing plants. Traces of them end up in pollen, which bees consume. Neonicotinoid residues also have been found in the pollen of wildflowers growing near fields and in nearby streams. The scientists, based at Royal Holloway University of London, set up a laboratory experiment with bumblebee queens. They fedPopular Pesticides Keep Bumblebees From Laying Eggshttp://ktep.org/post/popular-pesticides-keep-bumblebees-laying-eggs
113382 as http://ktep.orgMon, 14 Aug 2017 15:41:00 +0000Popular Pesticides Keep Bumblebees From Laying EggsDan CharlesIt has become a rite of summer. Every year, a "dead zone" appears in the Gulf of Mexico. It's an area where water doesn't have enough oxygen for fish to survive. And every year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration commissions scientists to venture out into the Gulf to measure it. This week, NOAA announced that this year's dead zone is the biggest one ever measured. It covers 8,776 square miles — an area the size of New Jersey. And it's adding fuel to a debate over whether state and federal governments are doing enough to cut pollution that comes from farms. The debate actually goes back many years, at least to 1985, when Don Scavia was a scientist at the NOAA. He and his colleagues asked some scientists, for the first time, to go look for a dead zone in the Gulf. "We expected it to be there," Scavia recalls. They expected to find it because they knew that the Mississippi River delivers a heavy load of nutrient pollution, specifically nitrogen and phosphorus, into theThe Gulf Of Mexico's Dead Zone Is The Biggest Ever Seenhttp://ktep.org/post/gulf-mexicos-dead-zone-biggest-ever-seen
112707 as http://ktep.orgThu, 03 Aug 2017 09:05:00 +0000The Gulf Of Mexico's Dead Zone Is The Biggest Ever SeenDan CharlesCopyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: The poultry industry may be on the verge of a big change in the way it handles chickens. Perdue, one of the country's largest poultry producers, says it's increasingly hearing from customers who say they want the birds treated more humanely. And NPR's Dan Charles reports those requests are starting to translate into action. DAN CHARLES, BYLINE: Poultry companies like Perdue Farms have fought a lot of battles with animal welfare advocates. But last week, Perdue asked some of those critics to come visit one of its chicken farms near Frankfort, Del. A Perdue executive, Mike Leventini, showed them around. MIKE LEVENTINI: So when you walk into this barn, first thing you see - there's windows, right? You get a feel for how much life's in this barn. CHARLES: It's a long building filled with tens of thousands of young birds. LEVENTINI: They're being chickens. They're flapping their the wings. They're running around. They're hangingPoultry Industry Ready To Change The Way It Handles Chickenshttp://ktep.org/post/poultry-industry-ready-change-way-it-handles-chickens
112295 as http://ktep.orgThu, 27 Jul 2017 20:32:00 +0000Poultry Industry Ready To Change The Way It Handles ChickensDan CharlesIn a vast, dimly lit barn near Frankford, Delaware, surrounded by tens of thousands of young chickens, about a dozen people in ghostly white coveralls are considering future options for the poultry industry. Executives from Perdue Farms , the fourth-largest poultry producer in the country, have set up this tour. Their guests include some long-time foes: people who lead influential animal welfare organizations like the Humane Society of the United States , Compassion in World Farming and Mercy for Animals . They're here because Perdue, breaking ranks with the rest of the industry, has endorsed a major shift in the way it treats its chickens, and it wants to show off what it's done so far. Animal welfare advocates would like to force much of the industry to follow the same path. This tour involves a side-by-side comparison of two chicken houses. We're in one that's set up to represent typical industry practices. Right next door, though, is Perdue's version of the future, and a PerduePerdue Farms Signs Up For A Chicken Welfare Revolutionhttp://ktep.org/post/perdue-farms-signs-chicken-welfare-revolution
112279 as http://ktep.orgThu, 27 Jul 2017 19:39:00 +0000Perdue Farms Signs Up For A Chicken Welfare RevolutionDan CharlesJim Schott had one goal when he abandoned academic life to start the company called Haystack Mountain : He wanted to make some of the finest goat cheese in the country. With cheese in hand, he visited supermarkets, trying to persuade them to sell his product. Some didn't take him seriously. But Whole Foods did. "From the very beginning, they wanted to taste it," Schott recalls. "And they wanted to know the story. They wanted to know where the cheese came from; who was making it; where it was made." Jim Schott had a great story to tell. He'd walked away from a university job, mid-career, to raise goats on five acres of land. "I didn't want a compartmentalized life," he says. "I wanted a life where the work that I did, the people I saw, the family I had, that it was all of one piece, and that it was connected to the earth, and to ...." He pauses. "To real things." Whole Foods loved his cheese. His company grew. It also changed. Ten years ago, Haystack Mountain started buying milk from aWhat's It Really Like To Work In A Prison Goat Milk Farm? We Asked Inmateshttp://ktep.org/post/whats-it-really-work-prison-goat-milk-farm-we-asked-inmates
111862 as http://ktep.orgThu, 20 Jul 2017 19:31:00 +0000What's It Really Like To Work In A Prison Goat Milk Farm? We Asked InmatesDan CharlesTwo weeks ago, in a remarkable move , the State Plant Board of Arkansas voted to ban the sale and use of a weedkiller called dicamba. It took that action after a wave of complaints about dicamba drifting into neighboring fields and damaging other crops, especially soybeans. That ban is still waiting to go into force. It requires approval from a committee of the state legislature, which will meet on Friday. Estimates of dicamba's damage, however, continue to increase. Since the Plant Board's vote, the number of dicamba-related complaints in Arkansas has soared to 550. Reports of damage also are increasing in the neighboring states of Tennessee, Missouri and Mississippi. The total area of damaged soybean fields could reach 2 million acres. "I've never seen anything even close to this," says Larry Steckel, a weed specialist at the University of Tennessee. "We have drift issues every year in a handful of fields, but I've never seen anything like this." Dicamba is not a new weedkiller; it'sDamage From Wayward Weedkiller Keeps Growing http://ktep.org/post/damage-wayward-weedkiller-keeps-growing
110948 as http://ktep.orgThu, 06 Jul 2017 09:01:00 +0000Damage From Wayward Weedkiller Keeps Growing Dan CharlesIn the global debate over neonicotinoid pesticides, the company that makes most of them has relied on one primary argument to defend its product: The evidence that these chemicals, commonly called "neonics," are harmful to bees has been gathered in artificial conditions, force-feeding bees in the laboratory, rather than in the real world of farm fields. That company, Bayer, states on its website that "no adverse effects to bee colonies were ever observed in field studies at field-realistic exposure conditions." Bayer will have a harder time making that argument after today. (Although it still has another argument in its quiver. We'll get to that later.) This week, the prestigious journal Science reveals results from the biggest field study ever conducted of bees and neonics, which are usually coated on seeds, like corn and soybean seeds, before planting. Scientists monitored bees — honeybees and two types of wild bees — at 33 sites across Europe, in the United Kingdom, Germany andPesticides Are Harming Bees — But Not Everywhere, Major New Study Showshttp://ktep.org/post/pesticides-are-harming-bees-not-everywhere-major-new-study-shows
110586 as http://ktep.orgThu, 29 Jun 2017 22:22:00 +0000Pesticides Are Harming Bees — But Not Everywhere, Major New Study ShowsDan CharlesArkansas's pesticide regulators have stepped into the middle of an epic battle between weeds and chemicals, which has now morphed into a battle between farmers. Hundreds of farmers say their crops have been damaged by a weedkiller that was sprayed on neighboring fields. Today, the Arkansas Plant Board voted to impose an unprecedented ban on that chemical. "It's fracturing the agricultural community. You either have to choose to be on the side of using the product, or on the side of being damaged by the product," says David Hundley, who manages grain production for Ozark Mountain Poultry in Bay, Arkansas. The tension — which even led to a farmer's murder — is over a weedkiller called dicamba. The chemical moved into the weed-control spotlight a few years ago, when Monsanto created soybean and cotton plants that were genetically modified to survive it. Farmers who planted these new seeds could use dicamba to kill weeds without harming those crops. Farmers, especially in the South, haveArkansas Tries To Stop An Epidemic Of Herbicide Damagehttp://ktep.org/post/arkansas-tries-stop-epidemic-herbicide-damage
110219 as http://ktep.orgFri, 23 Jun 2017 22:09:00 +0000Arkansas Tries To Stop An Epidemic Of Herbicide DamageDan CharlesGerry Newman buys vanilla by the gallon. He's co-owner of Albemarle Baking Co. , in Charlottesville, Va., and vanilla goes into everything from his cookies to pastry cream. A few years ago, each 1-gallon bottle of organic, fair-trade vanilla set him back $64. Today, it's $245, more than Newman can comfortably stomach. It's a global phenomenon, hitting pastry chefs and ice cream makers alike. Some have changed their recipes to use less vanilla. Newman has switched suppliers to find a cheaper product. "It's not certified organic. It's not fair trade," he says. "There's a guilt I have over that, because we're talking about something that's all hand labor, and if these people aren't being treated fairly, it's really sad." To understand the current vanilla crisis, this is the first thing to understand: It's one of the most labor-intensive foods on Earth. Vanilla beans are the seeds of an orchid. It grows wild in Mexico, where its flowers are pollinated by birds and insects. Most of theOur Love Of 'All Natural' Is Causing A Vanilla Shortagehttp://ktep.org/post/our-love-all-natural-causing-vanilla-shortage
109711 as http://ktep.orgFri, 16 Jun 2017 11:39:00 +0000Our Love Of 'All Natural' Is Causing A Vanilla ShortageDan CharlesNeil Shook was relaxing at home in Woodworth, N.D., on a Saturday afternoon just over a week ago. "My wife was outside and she yelled at me to come outside and take a look at this," he recalls. A massive brown cloud covered the horizon to the west. It was a dust storm — although Shook, who's a scientist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, doesn't like to call it dust. "I like to refer to it as soil, because that's basically what it is," he says. "We saw this huge soil cloud moving from west to east across the landscape." That soil cloud is a result of farming practices — and of government policies. Soil has been blowing away from the Great Plains ever since farmers first plowed up the prairie. It reached crisis levels during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, when windblown soil turned day into night. In recent years, dust storms have returned , driven mainly by drought. But Shook — and others — say farmers are making the problem worse by taking land where grass used to grow and plowingU.S. Pays Farmers Billions To Save The Soil. But It's Blowing Awayhttp://ktep.org/post/us-pays-farmers-billions-save-soil-its-blowing-away
109177 as http://ktep.orgWed, 07 Jun 2017 21:32:00 +0000U.S. Pays Farmers Billions To Save The Soil. But It's Blowing AwayDan CharlesWhen President Trump announced this week that he was taking the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, there were swift and vocal reactions from many industries --- but most of the organizations that represent American agriculture were silent. Chris Clayton , though, a veteran reporter at one of the leading farm publications in the country, took to Twitter: "Since today seems all about doing something that goes against the facts and the world, I'm just saying, Cavs in seven. # NBAFinals " Clayton is a Midwesterner and agricultural policy editor at DTN/The Progressive Farmer. He's also the author of The Elephant in the Cornfield: The Politics of Agriculture and Climate Change , which describes in detail how farmers and farm lobbyists have dealt — or, more often, refused to deal — with a changing climate. It has sometimes put Clayton in an awkward spot, as he acknowledged when I reached him this week in his office in Omaha, Neb. Does it make you nervous, as a reporter at aA Farm Journalist Tells Farmers What They'd Rather Not Hear About Climate Changehttp://ktep.org/post/farm-journalist-tells-farmers-what-theyd-rather-not-hear-about-climate-change
108887 as http://ktep.orgFri, 02 Jun 2017 20:39:00 +0000A Farm Journalist Tells Farmers What They'd Rather Not Hear About Climate ChangeDan Charles"That's the old industry," Tom Auvil tells me, nodding toward an apple orchard that we're driving past. We're near Wenatchee, Wash., which calls itself the Apple Capital of the World. Auvil grew up in the apple business, and until recently, he was a horticulturist for the Washington Tree Fruit Research Commission . The trees do look old, but that's not what Auvil is getting at. He's talking about their size and shape. They're large and round, far enough apart to let their branches spread. In the fall, workers will have to climb ladders to pick their fruit. That's the image of the old apple industry: stately rows of Red Delicious and Golden Delicious apples. But here is what the new apple industry looks like. This orchard looks more like a vineyard. These trees are young, so they're tiny. But they'll never get very big. They're packed closely together, thousands of them on a single acre. Each tree is supported by poles or wires. Workers can harvest the apples while standing on platformsHow New Roots Are Driving An Apple Renaissancehttp://ktep.org/post/how-new-roots-are-driving-apple-renaissance
108775 as http://ktep.orgThu, 01 Jun 2017 14:00:00 +0000How New Roots Are Driving An Apple RenaissanceDan CharlesIt's planting time in America. Farmers are spending long days on their tractors, pulling massive planters across millions of acres of farmland, dropping corn and soybean seeds into the ground. Most of those seeds have been coated with pesticides known as neonicotinoids, or neonics for short. And despite attempts by pesticide makers to reduce this, some of that coating is getting rubbed off the seeds and blown into the air. That dust is settling on the ground, on ponds, and on vegetation nearby. Honeybees and wild bees, looking for food, will encounter traces of the pesticides, and some will be harmed. They may become disoriented and bring less food back to their colony. Many may die. Several years ago, Christian Krupke , an insect specialist at Purdue University in Indiana, became one of the first researchers to discover that rogue dust was wiping out bee colonies. At first, Art Schaafsma , an entomologist at the University of Guelph, in Canada, didn't believe it was true. 2 Scientists, 2 Different Approaches To Saving Bees From Poison Dusthttp://ktep.org/post/two-scientists-two-different-approaches-saving-bees-poison-dust
108504 as http://ktep.orgSat, 27 May 2017 12:00:00 +00002 Scientists, 2 Different Approaches To Saving Bees From Poison Dust